D. MacHale - The Rivers of Zadaa

Teek whispered, “The way I understand it is that the larger switches control the giant gates to the north. They are all open now, allowing the ocean to rise. The small switches on the opposite side control the many smaller gates to the south. They are closed, waiting for the moment when the Batu arrive on the far shore.”

“So they haven’t started sending the water into the dry rivers?” I asked.

“No,” Teek said. “They are waiting for the signal. There is a string of Tiggen guards, starting with boats on the ocean and leading back to here. They will pass the word when the Batu are in sight.”

I nodded and snuck back to the door. Moments later Teek andIwere again with the others.

“We’ve got a window,” I said. “They haven’t started the flood. Whatever we’re going to do, it’s got to be now.” I said this while looking at Loor. She was the pro. She would have to come up with our plan of attack.

“Surprise is our best weapon,” she said. “But that advantage will not last long. As soon as we make a move, I am sure there will be some sort of alarm. Tiggen guards will descend on us. Even if we successfully take control of the device, we will not hold it for long.”

My big plan to take control was suddenly looking not so big.

“What if we seal the entry?” Alder asked.

“You mean, lock ourselves in?” I asked.

Loor said, “It might give the Ghee warriors enough time to arrive on the island and capture the Tiggen guards.”

We all looked to Teek and the friendly Tiggen guards. They looked sick. Since returning to Kidik, they had been hit with a pretty harsh dose of reality. It wasn’t getting any better. They said they wanted to help, but it now looked as if they would have to battle their own. I was afraid they were having second thoughts.

“You are asking us to fight our brothers and help overthrow our own tribe,” Teek said solemnly.

“It’s true,” I said. “If we do this, the Batu will seize control of the underground. But if we don’t, the Ghee warriors will be drowned. That leaves Xhaxhu wide open to be attacked by the marauding tribes of Zadaa.”

“Soon after, they will come for you,” Loor said.

“Not if the tunnels remain flooded,” Teek said hopefully. “We can be safe here on Kidik Island.”

“For how long?” Loor asked. “You will starve. All food comes from above. Soon you would have to drain the tunnels and move to the surface, where you would be slaughtered the same as the Batu.”

“I know this is hard to understand,” I said. “But that is exactly what Saint Dane wants. That’s why he led the elite into this plan. It will mean the end of civilization on Zadaa.”

“Why would he do such a thing?” Teek asked.

I looked to Loor, and to Alder. There was no easy answer to that question.

“Because he feels that once Zadaa falls apart, he can seize power himself and build his own world from the ruins.” That was about as short a thumbnail explanation as I could come up with. I hoped it was enough. “The Batu and the Rokador once existed in peace,” I said. “That can happen again. The Rokador can rebuild and grow, but not without the help and protection of the Batu.”

Teek said, “I need a moment.” He led his two friends away from us for a private chat. Loor, Alder, and I were left to do the same.

“Will they help us?” Alder asked.

“If they don’t, it means they’re against us,” I said while pulling my wooden stave from its sheath. “The battle for the master control room might start right here.”

It was a tense moment. We heard the three of them whispering with passion. Finally Teek approached us.

“We will help you seize the master controller,” Teek said. “But we will not trap ourselves inside. Whatever fate holds for the rest of our tribe, we will join them and face it together.”

Loor nodded and said, “That is both wise and noble. It is the way it should be.”

“Okay,” I said. “How are we gonna do this?”

Loor’s plan was a simple one. We weren’t worried about the engineers, or the elite. We had to go right for the Tiggen guards and get them out of the master control room. If anybody else wanted to leave, that was fine by us. The idea was to move fast, take charge, and lock ourselves in before they knew what hit them. And definitely before they started to flood the underground. Teek explained that there was a single entrance on the ground level. That is how we would enter. We decided that one of Teek’s friends would remain on the catwalk to seal off the entrance from above. That’s as far as our plan took us. After that we’d have to wing it.

With a quick “good luck” to the Tiggen guard who would remain, Teek led us out of the building. We had to quickly move across an open field, away from the sprawling complex, to get to the entrance that would lead down deeper underground to the floor of the master control room. Teek explained that the catwalk entrance and the ground entrance were kept separate in case of emergency. I didn’t know what kind of emergency they were planning for, but I was pretty sure this wasn’t it.

The entrance was nothing more than a small building, no bigger than a garage. We had gotten halfway across to it when we all heard an odd sound. I was going to keep going, because everything I saw and heard was odd, but Teek stopped short. Whatever was making that sound, it wasn’t something he was expecting. Same with the other Tiggen. They stopped abruptly and looked at the sky. Actually, there wasn’t any sky to look up at. Above us was the rock ceiling of the immense cavern that held the Kidik Ocean.

“What is that noise?” Alder asked.

I realized that it sounded familiar, though I couldn’t place it. Nor could I tell where it was coming from. Since Teek and the others were looking up, I figured it was coming from above. But how could that be? There was nothing up there but a rock ceiling. The sound was a steady, rumbling noise that came from everywhere and nowhere. It actually sounded muffled, as if something were masking the true sound.

“Could it be?” Loor asked, looking up.

“Could it be what?” I asked.

A second later I had my answer. The sound suddenly grew louder, as if whatever was muffling it had been pulled away. The sound instantly became high-pitched and sharp. I realized where I had heard it before.

“It’s a dygo!” I shouted.

The reason it was no longer muffled was because it had been drilling through rock and had now broken through. For a second I thought Saangi had found the dygo and was coming to join us. I couldn’t have been more wrong. High above, off in the distance, a dygo had broken through the ceiling of the cavern.

“No!” Alder shouted. “They do not know they are drilling down into a cavern!”

“How can a Rokador not know there’s a cavern here?” I asked.

“Because that is not a Rokador,” Loor said solemnly. “The Batu have arrived.”

The sick truth hit me. Whoever was piloting that dygo was drilling down, expecting to hit a tunnel. Instead they hit air. The drill came through first, followed by the familiar silver sphere of a dygo. A moment later gravity took over, and the dygo fell for what had to be a couple of hundred yards. The only minor luck was that it wasn’t directly over Kidik Island. It was over water. The dygo plummeted down, its drill spinning uselessly. It was hard to watch. It only took a few seconds, and the dygo splashed down like a space capsule returning to earth without a parachute.

I winced. I couldn’t imagine what the passengers were going through.

“Can they survive that?” I asked.

Teek answered, “It’s possible. If they were securely strapped in.”

Alder said, “But they will drown!”